Beloved by film and art aficionados and fans of neo-noir cinema, Mulholland Drive is one of the most important and enigmatic films of recent years. It occupies a central and controversial position in the work of its director, David Lynch, who won the best director award at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival for the movie. Mulholland Drive in the Routledge Philosophers on Film series is the first full philosophical appraisal of Lynch's film. Beginning with an introduction by the editor, the (...) volume explores the following topics: the identity of the self and its persistence through time the central, dual roles played by fantasy and reality throughout the film whether Mulholland Drive is best understood epistemologically via reason and language, or whether, as Lynch himself argues, by one's 'inner feelings' and emotions parallels between Mulholland Drive and Kafka's The Castle , both of which pit their protagonists at the mercy of unseen forces Mulholland Drive and romanticism. Additional key themes are also discussed, such as the interpenetration of ethics, classical tragedy, and the contrasting philosophical arguments of Plato and Nietzsche on tragic drama. These themes make Mulholland Drive essential and engaging reading for students of philosophy, especially aesthetics and ethics, as well as film studies. (shrink)

Zina Giannopoulou offers a new reading of Theaetetus, Plato's most systematic examination of knowledge, alongside Apology, Socrates' speech in defence of his philosophical practice, and argues that the former text is a philosophical ...

In this paper I argue that in the digression in Plato’s Theaetetus godlikeness may be construed as Socrates’ ethical achievement, part and parcel of his art of mental mid­wifery. Although the philosophical life of contemplation and detachment from earthly affairs exemplifies the human ideal of godlikeness, Socrates’ godlikeness is an inferior but legitimate species of the genus. This is the case because Socratic godlikeness abides by the two requirements for godlikeness that Socrates sets forth in the digression: first, it is (...) a kind of escape from the phenomenal world; and second, it allows Socrates to become just and pious with wisdom. The crucial difference between Socrates and the philosopher that prevents the former from being as godlike as the latter is his epistemic barrenness, on account of which he cannot define the constitutive virtues of godlikeness, i.e., justice, piety, and wisdom. As a barren midwife of the intellect, Socrates practices godlikeness but does not have a philosophical understanding of its nature. Nevertheless, by extolling the life of the philosopher he urges others to aspire to what he can never attain, philosophical godlikeness. (shrink)

Zina Giannopoulou - The Midwife of Platonism: Text and Subtext in Plato's Theaetetus - Journal of the History of Philosophy 43:3 Journal of the History of Philosophy 43.3 353-354 David Sedley. The Midwife of Platonism: Text and Subtext in Plato's Theaetetus. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004. Pp. x + 201. Cloth, $60.00. Scholarly interest in the Theaetetus, Plato's most systematic treatment of knowledge, has been recently on the rise. While comprehensive studies, such as Myles Burnyeat's The Theaetetus of Plato and Ronald (...) Polansky's Philosophy and Knowledge: A Commentary on Plato's Theaetetus , have valuably illuminated existing interpretative debates, they have also either neglected or treated marginally some of the dialogue's most thorny philosophical issues (such as, for example, the puzzling formal.. (shrink)